


Tricky little things

by anais_ninja



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Euthanasia, Gen, Grief/Mourning, I Don't Even Know, I'll write something funny next, So much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-08
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-11 13:49:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1173813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anais_ninja/pseuds/anais_ninja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of how a series of tricky little things lead to Laura Hale becoming an Alpha.  It's not a happy story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tricky little things

**Author's Note:**

> What is even with me and the Laura Hale angst? I don't even know. I've always pondered about how she became an Alpha, and this is one version that I came up with. It's the version I was thinking of when I wrote "Medication Mambo" and "A single thought. Or maybe a dream," so I guess that makes it my headcanon. How awful.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy! If enjoy is the word....

Fires are tricky things, as the fire marshall had tried to explain to them, especially when they burn so hot and fast.  This was meant to help them understand why Peter and Talia had been recovered alive, if barely, while nothing was left of Cora but a the heart-shaped locket their father had given her for her fifth birthday.  They were asked to identify it along with other “personal affects”, and no one ever mentioned looking at the remains.

Burns are tricky things; at least that’s what the doctor said.  He had been slowly and gently coming around to his point, which was why even though their mother was conscious, they needed to say their good-byes; apparently Uncle Peter was stable, though comatose. 

More than a few people visited Talia during her decline, hearing her last words through a plastic tent meant to stave off infection.  Sometimes, such as when Dr. Deaton came, she asked Laura and Derek to leave the room.

The lawyer didn’t so much say that wills were tricky, but that was the upshot of her long ramble.  Words like “custody” and “trust fund” and “no heroic efforts” rolled through their heads, as Talia nodded along, wearing an unreadable expression.  It was that perfect mix of stern and smile that only mothers seems to be able to do.

The business of death is always tricky, but when the most powerful Alpha of a generation is dying, that word fails utterly.  In some ways it’s very simple.  Derek would leave the room and keep a watch by the door.  Laura would place a pillow over her mother’s face and hold it there until she stopped breathing.  No one would rush toward the sound of the heart monitor flatlining.  Talia would die, and her daughter would become the Alpha.  All very simple.

Except for the tricky part where Derek cried almost silently and held his mother’s hand for twenty minutes, the only sounds in the room being his sniffles and Talia’s shushes.  Or the tricky part where Laura trew up in the waste basket and sobbed so hard she couldn’t breathe, which made her cry harder as she imagined that being the last thing her mother would feel.  Except for the tricky part where Laura watched her eyes burn flame blue, then blood red, and realized she could never forgive herself.

And because of all those tricky little things, Laura would be a young Alpha with lots of money to care for her minor brother and invalid uncle after her mother had succombed to burns from a fire that had consumed the rest of her family.  And she would also be an orphan, a murderer, and a broken woman.


End file.
